Did you instruct a lawyer during redundancy to help settle?

[sellotape12]

Career MNers, has anyone instructed an employment solicitor during a redundancy consultation, to help negotiate a better settlement especially if contentious (e.g. unfair dismissal)? If so, what did you learn? I've no idea how to track costs. Obviously first £500 will be paid by my employer but assuming there's a back & forth, how much did you end up spending?
Other experiences welcome.

The employer will only pay for them to advise you on the actual settlement offered (not the first £500 - if it costs less than that you will only get the actual cost). If you want to negotiate then that is a cost to you, and it won't come cheap. Looking at your circumstances, I can see why you think it wasn't fair, but in all honesty I very much doubt you have a case that is anywhere near as "contentious" as you think. Fair in law and fair in the world are nowhere near the same thing. If you want to argue the offer, do it yourself - a lawyer will bring very little to the process that you can't except for a bill.

Are you speaking as a lawyer @EmmaMaria ?

I've unfortunately been through this twice. First time it was in a highly political organisation and there was a clear out of the closest team around a particular director and I was effectively just a casualty. I used the solicitor the organisation provided who explained that even if I was prepared to go for unfair dismissal (I wasn't) the payout if successful would only be similar to the redundancy offer plus time consuming and stressful.

Second time (many years later - I never planned to be a serial settler!) was a more complex situation and I bear no bad feelings. However, this time, I retained my own solicitor who did negotiate on my behalf. I think the mere fact I did this and that there was a chance I might consider action worked to increase the offer. The company paid the first £500 and I paid about the same on top which was worth it for the increased settlement and removal of the stress of having to negotiate direct. Again, the amount of an award if I had gone for unfair dismissal wouldn't have been worth it.

I think others have advised you similarly OP. Work on maximising your payout and put it behind you.

I can’t see your circumstances written out anywhere, unless I’m missing something?

But previous poster is correct in that your employer doesn’t pay you to negotiate against them, they pay for a solicitor to advise on the offer so usually will say “up to £500” but if it’s less then they pay less- normally the reviewing of a settlement agreement is around £500 anyway. Any negotiating is your cost to pay.

I’d say it would be worth you seeking some form of legal advice beforehand to get an idea of how strong your case is, and do some research to see how much extra you would realistically be likely to get, because it will be a case of weighing it up to see if it’s worthwhile doing it. If negotiating could get you an extra £20k and cost you £3000 then it would be worth it, but if it would only get you another £3000 and cost you £3000 it’s not, equally negotiating could cost you and you end up with no better off so you’re worse off.

Even a standard employment law solicitor would be around £250 an hour.

My solicitor told me to go back and tell them £500 was pre-covid rates. He was only a country solicitor and he charged £600. 😀

Then, when this had been agreed, he advised that my employer was underpaying me and I should consider rejecting their offer.

I did as I was told and got a 20% uplift.

@Mrsttcno1 I can’t see your circumstances written out anywhere, unless I’m missing something?

OP posted another thread about the actual situation very recently.

Rather than a lawyer, I used an experienced HR consultant. Much cheaper but she did exactly the same; negotiated on my behalf, told me about all the stuff I needed to do; pointed out all the weaknesses in their case etc.

Big bump in what I got as a result

Why do you think you’ve got a case for unfair dismissal. That might help us steer you

We pay employees legal costs when they are terminated. I can't remember ever paying more than £1k - these cases though are where we have opened with a settlement offer, they are not starting from zero.

It is worth remembering that the employer also has legal costs and won't want it to drag on and definitely won't want to go to tribunal. There's a balance to be found, asking for £1m is not going to work, but an extra £25k (for example) might be worth it to them to draw a line under it.

This probably isn't relevant for you (might help someone else) but if you do have a settlement offer ACAS will review and approve it for free, and their approval becomes legally binding.

Yes, there is a potential grounds for discrimination which my lawyer thinks is worth going for. She also thinks it’s a sham redundancy designed to restructure me out. So yes, I’m aware of the £500 settlement fee that the employer normally pays. I was asking more if anyone decided to put up a little bit more of their own money to try and battle it out and get a slightly higher settlement. Hence the specificity of my original question.